


Indiscriminate Dust

by Kaerran



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen, also everything is depressing, everything is implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaerran/pseuds/Kaerran
Summary: An AU featuring Zidane falling off the Prima Vista in Alexandria and getting arrested, and the fallout from that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was seeing if anyone had written an interesting Zidane-gets-petrified fic when my brain decided to offer me this lovely alternative to Zidane being unavailable during the game. It kind of... snowballed. Sorry.
> 
> The first chapter is little drabble scenes strung together inspired by glacialphoenix as tagged while the second chapter is expansions of most of the scenes.
> 
> Title from Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The last thing he remembered was a jolt as the Prima Vista bucked him off and the long fall afterwards to the cobbled streets.

He wakes up in a cell.

The guards tell him his execution will be in two days.

He hopes the princess was alright.

\----

No one escapes the Evil Forest, they say.

It is certainly true for some. Sacrifices must be made, and Tantalus' first priority is itself.

\----

She easily wins the Festival of the Hunt. Competition this year is light, although the bounty hunters put on a good show of it.

There is no reason for her to stick around.

She leaves before news of Burmecia filters to the streets of Lindblum.

\----

The last summoner is dead. Her eidolons are out of his reach. And the pendant is also lost, putting Alexander out of his reach as well.

He abandons Brahne to her schemes. He has no use for her anymore.

At least the replacement is dead now.

(Some small part of him regrets his brother's death but it's too late now.)

\----

The survivors of Burmecia flee to Cleyra.

The sandstorm strengthens.

Cleyra stands tall.

\----

Marsh is familiar.

Frogs tasty. Why leave? Too much fighting.

Not many frogs left.

\----

The war between Lindblum and Alexandria stretches on for months.

The devastation caused by airships versus black mages is horrible. The Theater District is not the only part of Lindblum that burns.

Peace is eventually made, but it is not the same as the last twenty years. 

\----

Time ticks by.

The plan continues.

The new angel of death is nearly ready. 

Terra's time will come.


	2. Chapter 2

Zidane sits in his cell and waits.

He actually hasn't been in jail before. Baku's connections and training mean that Tantalus generally doesn't get... caught. 

They keep him shackled, because they're not stupid, but one sympathetic guard does bring him the news about the theater ship. That, by itself, would've kept him from trying to escape. Instead he stares at the wall, trying not to imagine what must be happening down there. 

They lead him away from his cell twice for interrogation. He plays the fool, talking about how beautiful the princess was, and eventually about the ransom he (they) could've gotten. He doesn't mention Cid. He's pretty sure he's not supposed to know Cid hired them anyway.

The nice guard keeps him updated. The queen's soldiers found no trace of Tantalus or the princess outside the forest. The queen was being merciful because of his age and was having him hanged instead of something more gruesome. Did he want anything.

He doesn't answer because the only thing he wants, they can't give.

Once, he thinks he sees someone silver-haired at the door, but by the time he makes himself turn his head, the other is gone.

When they come to lead him away for the last time, he jokes with the guards about how he'd like his hands free. Jokes are all he has left.

Outside, he takes a moment to enjoy the wind in his hair one last time before ascending the steps.

\----

Blank stares at the wreck of the theater ship, unsure what to do now. They've put out the fires and emptied the ship, but they still can't find Ruby or Zidane.

Baku is in a fine mood, and they're all avoiding him. Blank hopes Zidane shows up soon.

Cinna calls; a moogle showed up with a letter. For Zidane, mind you, but Cinna coaxed him to give it up. Somehow, Ruby got stranded in Alexandria. That's one less person to worry about, even if she's probably pissed at them.

Zenero keeps needling Cinna about the ship, and Blank can't tell if he's trying to distract Cinna or drive him insane. Blank suspects it's a little of both.

Baku finally shows up to kick Cinna and Zenero into line, and since Blank doesn't really want to be kicked around either, he grabs Marcus to go scout. 

The Evil Forest isn't that bad, honestly. A lot of wolves and goblins, but Blank and Marcus are able to avoid most of them. They find a river that probably runs out of the forest, but no sign of the princess, and Blank isn't about to push his luck with the boss.

When they get back, the atmosphere is far heavier than before. Blank eventually pulls Cinna aside to ask what the hell happened, and finds out that Baku got another letter, but hasn't told anyone what it said. Since then, he's been beating the crap out of anyone who gets in his way, so the rest of Tantalus have gone to ground. Blank risks his skin to let the boss know what they found, but apparently that's good enough news to get out unscathed. 

Blank rejoins the rest just in time for the boss to show up and announce they're leaving. Now. No, they're not looking for the princess, they've got enough problems trying to get everyone they can find out alive.

None of them are willing to question why he's willing to abandon Zidane as well.

They move out.

\----

The Festival of the Hunt arrives. Freya is ready for it.

She's spied a couple of bounty hunters and a Qu, but none of them are really competition for a dragon knight. She easily takes down the Zaghnol, standing over her prize before the so-called Scarlet Hair appears. He's the only one who comes close, what with the Qu's focus on eating monsters instead of tracking down the highest score, and Lani's constant distraction by yelling at Scarlet Hair (Freya swears she can hear her from other districts, and wonders if she knows she's scaring the monsters away.)

After the award ceremony, Freya mingles. The bounty hunters cleared out as soon as they lost, and the Qu didn't even show up, but Freya has a moment to chat with Belna and Ivan, Lindblum natives and the local picks, and also the lowest scorer of the competition. 

She almost offered Genero advice, but Genero clearly saw her coming and gave her a lopsided grin. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I'm just... distracted."

Freya quirks an unseen eyebrow at him. "Distracted? And you still participated?"

Genero shrugs. "You don't just withdraw from the Festival of the Hunt. And, well, two of my brothers were on the Prima Vista." When she doesn't react, he adds, "The Tantalus Theater Ship. It apparently crashed on its way back from Alexandria." 

Freya knows of Tantalus, assumes Zidane has gone back. He's probably fine. 

She doesn't stick around long after that. She has no reason to linger in Lindblum.

She is gone long before the first Burmecian refugees arrive.

\----

Kuja ponders his next course of action. His main reason to spur Brahne to war was for the eidolons her daughter possessed. Even lacking those, he still could have continued on with Alexander... but the brat fled wearing the pendant, and now she and the pendant are out of his reach.

When no one else was willing to risk it, he'd entered the Evil Forest alone, but found nothing. The broken airship had been abandoned, and the only signs of passage he'd found were broken scraps of armor and a torn black mage hat. There was no way to tell where the pendant had ended up.

With eidolons out of his reach, he needs a new plan, and fast. Spurring this war had bought him some time before Garland would roast him, but his bro--replacement's death would destroy any good will he had. 

He should have saved him. He could have dangled Zidane in front of Garland and used the distraction to create a new plan, but he'd been too consumed by the summoner search.

Either way, staying in Alexandria is pointless now. Time to go.

\----

Without the arms dealer promising to destroy the sandstorm, the best the armies of Alexandria could do was climb the trunk, and even then the sandstorm killed more than could climb.

Brahne finally calls an end to it when Beatrix brings her the real figures. Cleyra is no threat anyway, and the jewel they carry is useless without the pendant.

Cleyra will survive, scarred but shrouded from Brahne's sight. She can pretend it's not there and continue on.

\----

The failed Cleyra campaign has bought Lindblum some time. The army is mobilized, the airships redeployed. Cid's information network is crippled though, since Tantalus has not yet returned.

(This is a lie. Cinna and the Nero brothers have returned, with some information about Brahne, but it's outdated and Baku's core group is still in the wind. But by now, the "bandit"'s execution is gossip in the streets. Cid knows why Baku has not come back.)

The Hilda Garde 2 is still a failure, and Cid has never needed so desperately to be building airships right now.

Which meant that Hilda showing up in the Hilda Garde 1 nearly brings Cid to tears.

They still have plenty of marital troubles to sort out, but right now, war takes precedence, and Hilda turns him back.

(He holds no illusions. If war wasn't imminent, he has no idea how to convince her to release her spell. There's no way she'd believe him if he vowed to never stray again.)

The Hilda Garde 1 was never meant as a warship, and the Hilda Garde 2 was never completed, so the airship docks are filled with activity to refit the two. Neither are really complete when war comes.

(By now Cinna is the main person bringing him information about Brahne's movements. Cid has also seen Blank a few times and Marcus once, but he honestly can't tell if Baku has returned to the city at all.)

Although Lindblum controls the skies, the black mage army rules the ground, and Brahne seems to have an infinite supply of soldiers. The fighting finally enters Lindblum itself, and after that, everything goes to hell.

Brahne burns the Theater District in retaliation against Tantalus, since most have eluded her grasp. It seems not many managed to escape her this time, since Cid stops receiving updates completely. He never finds out what happened to them.

The airships bomb her supply lines out of existence, but the black mages don't seem to need supplies. Only the army lead by Beatrix needs those, and with the supplies gone, they dwindle fast. The war was never about them though.

It takes sending some of the airships off to bomb Alexandria itself to get Brahne in for peace talks. She sneers at Cid, determined to win her war, but still able to remember that she has people to protect in addition to the ones she wants to conquer. Cid knows these peace talks are only going to create a ceasefire to last until they've both licked their wounds and re-formed their armies. 

The talks go poorly. She blames Lindblum for Princess Garnet's death, but it's clear that Zidane never told her that Cid had hired them. He doubts that Baku told the teenager, he knows Baku had complained about Zidane's bragging about being a thief. Cid retorts that he can't control some acting troupe that's been performing in Alexandria for _years_.

He brings up Burmecia, she deflects. She claims Cleyra was left alone out of mercy, he doesn't call her out on it. 

Neither are willing to concede anything.

The agreement is just what Cid feared: a ceasefire, and nothing more. The peace his father dreamed of is over.

\----

The cycle continues

Garland can relax again. His fears appear to have been unfounded. Kuja has done his job well.

If not for Kuja's allowing his replacement to die, Garland would have been amazed by Kuja's reversal of expectations. However, Zidane's death proves that Kuja is still planning something.

Still, Kuja has done an adequate job for his time. Garland can be fairly sure that he will not make any other moves before he dies. He's had to switch Mikoto's training entirely, but nothing that can't be fixed. She is far more suited to his purpose than Kuja was, and likely how Zidane turned out.

He needs only to wait. There is nothing Gaia can do to stop Terra now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what happened to Tantalus. Or. Uh. Everyone. Um. At least Eiko won't break any promises now, right...?


End file.
